Fuck It
by 4pollos
Summary: It's the first day of Winter Break, and Nathan has just gotten his license. Companion fic to Attending Fuckface Academy but can be read as separates. High school AU.


This requires some willing suspension of disbelief, not gonna lie, but hey. This counts as updating Attending Fuckface Academy...right?

* * *

It's the first day of winter break, but it doesn't _feel _like winter break. The air is hot and heavy on their shoulders, the sun is bright and blinding bouncing off the sidewalks and streets; it's a usual Saturday. Nathan had just gotten his license that Wednesday and had not yet had the chance to drive due to his lack of car, so they're walking through the shadier part of downtown, their favorite haunt. There's a certain bliss buzzing in the air, that feeling of having school off for two weeks, that adds an extra bounce in Pickle's step as they maneuver through the avenues. The topic of conversation turns to Nathan's new license and associated freedom as they turn a corner and move more towards the fringes of downtown.

"Wish I had a car," Nathan says. He shoves a long section of hair away from his face. He's lumbering through the streets, striding like his legs are locked in cinder blocks, and growling at fellow pedestrians. It's typical Nathan behavior, and Pickles finds it at least a little amusing. He has to quicken his pace to keep up with Nathan, his height in competition (and losing quite badly) with Nathan's.

"Me _too_," Pickles says. He takes a drag off the cigarette he's holding between his index and middle finger, then flips off the next people they pass by, a young indie couple. He snorts, partly at the couple, partly because his nose is a little sore from last night's annual winter break coke binge with Sammy and the guys.

"Fucking parents," Nathan says, "not getting me a car yet." Pickles offers him his cigarette; Nathan bats it away. Nathan doesn't smoke, even with Pickles's constant pestering. Pickles shrugs, more to himself than to Nathan.

"You know what you want?" Pickles sucks the smoke in all for himself. He tilts his head back and closes his eyes. He wants to bathe in the sunshine, soak it into his bloodstream like he does with so many other substances. Unfortunately that's not physically possible and he settles for the burning sensation high on his cheeks, the sweltering inside of his clothes, and the omnipresent humidity.

"El Camino," Nathan says without a second's hesitation, "but my fucking parents say no. They say I can get a truck eventually." He sighs deeply, breath rattling fists clenching,. "Trucks are, like, the opposite of metal."

Pickle snorts again and lets the cigarette, burned to a stub, fall to the ground. "You can make it metal," he says. "Get some good speakers and a bad paint job. Maybe even some rims." Nathan laughs; Pickles cracks a grin open like an egg, which could easily fry on the sidewalk. Fucking Florida.

They keep walking. They end up in a children's playground that's by the water and they climb on top of the jungle gym, Nathan sitting like a king and Pickles hooking his legs around a bar and hanging like a bat. The blood rushes to his head, his newly-dreaded hair swings slightly in the breeze, and he pushes the hem of his shirt back to his jeans. The playground is full of kids, it being the first day of break and all, but their arrival sends the kids by the jungle gym running in intimidation. The parents eye them suspiciously; Pickles smiles at them, all of them.

"Let's do cool shit this break," Nathan says, picking at the chipping paint on the jungle gym. His black nails glisten. The sunbaked metal of the jungle gym burns into the skin behind Pickles's knees and hurts his eyes. He squints.

"Like what?" Pickles thrusts his arms below him and rocks his body back and forth, crossing his arms over his chest. His shirt falls down again and he leaves it.

"Like, party and shit," Nathan says. "I don't know. Last year's was really lame." Last year during winter break they had been in middle school, not that it mattered, and they spent a lot of time hanging out with each other, sneaking Nathan's parents' liquor into the basement and playing a myriad of video games from Mario Kart Wii to Call of Duty. Pickles spent a week straight at Nathan's house until his parents sent him home on Christmas Eve, apology written all over their faces. Pickles got clothes that he hated for Christmas; Seth got a car. Nathan, however, received two sets of four concert tickets to a pretty cool band playing a local venue and a metal festival in Orlando, both over Spring Break.

"Yeah, it was," Pickles says. He rocks back and forth on the bar. "Spring Break was rad though."

"Toki almost killed a guy," Nathan says, in a fond, nostalgic manner. During Spring Break they discovered that Toki was a fucking monster at concerts; the incident at hand occurred when Toki knocked down a guy who was a foot taller than him and blocking his view, then kicked him in the stomach while moshing.

"I know, I was so proud of him," Pickles says. He swings up to a sitting position and holds a hand to his head as the blood rushes back into his head. He sort of likes the sensation. "I have an idea," he says as his vision stops swimming. He turns to Nathan and grabs hold of the bar between his legs, leaning in towards his friend.

Nathan holds Pickles's gaze in a way that Pickles knows to mean _keep talking, I'm interested_, even if Nathan makes his best effort to look indifferent.

"Let's-let's fucking steal a car," Pickles says, and the quantum of energy inside him is too great to keep it from spilling over. He's positively vibrating with excitement, knowing that Nathan's going to say yes, and that his idea is grand. Nathan asked for cool shit, and Nathan's going to get cool shit."Not here, though. Don't wanna get messed up with these douchebags. Like, from a parking lot to a law firm on 3rd. A _nice _car. You can drive."

Nathan's lips move into a slight smile and he nods once, then twice, then slaps Pickles on the shoulder. "I knew there's a reason why you're my best friend," he says. He slides down the bars of the jungle gym and takes off in the direction of 3rd Avenue. Pickles hurries after him, appreciating the adrenaline high buzzing in his veins. It does not take them long to reach a law firm parking lot; the city's courthouse is on 3rd, and thus the avenue is clustered with squat buildings, sardine boxes of lawyers. They take a second to laugh at their square lifestyles before walking into the parking lot that's snuggled behind an olive-colored concrete rectangle with about five cars in it. They separate and investigate.

"Well, what do you know," Pickles says, peering into the window of a Lincoln, the first car to his right.. "This one has the keys in it." With one hand still on the window he turns and beckons Nathan to come see.

Nathan walks over and Pickles moves out of the way so Nathan can cup his hands on the tinted windows and look in. "It does," he says, and then he smashes the window of the car with his fist-an alarm starts to wail, but that's sort of typical to hear downtown-and turns the key in the engine. "Get in," he says as he unlocks the car door and pulls his arm back out. It's bleeding in miniscule rivers along his arm, but nothing too bad that would scar or stain. Pickles does as he's told, rolling over the hood of the car in lieu of walking around it and sliding into the passenger seat.

Nathan backs out roughly, barely looking behind him, and rips into the alleyway behind 3rd, going in the direction of the city. He's driving on the fast side and recklessly, neither of which surprises Pickles. Nobody has come chasing after them, the feeling of getting away with it slowly starting to replace that of the immediate nerves that follows doing something illegal. Nathan slams on the brakes at a red light and Pickles takes the opportunity to turn the radio on. Top 40 music hums at a low volume and they both start gagging, a little for laughs and a little for real. Pickles finds the most brutal station he can find, turns it up to full volume, and rolls his window down, resting his elbow on the car door. He hollers, barely able to hear his own voice over the sound of the wind, the sound of the road, and the music.

Nathan's driving with one hand lax on the wheel and the other arm around the back of Pickles's seat, and he's smiling, nodding his head along with the music. He screams the chorus and Pickles whips his head around, dreads bouncing on his shoulder and chest, almost hurting his ferocity is so great. He's caught up in it all that the ending of the song and the switching to commercials is jarring and frightening. His body sputters and he grabs the edge of the car door to ground himself.

"Shit," Nathan says. Pickles turns the radio, advertising a personal injury lawyer of all things, down. "I gotta hand it to you, Pickles. This is a great way to start break."

"I know, man," Pickles says. He pulls his legs up into his seat and lets his knees drop against the dashboard. They're heading straight on the busiest street in their town, the one that'll take them up through the state at this rate. Their lack of direction or destination is irrelevant; it's the act, the feeling, that they're relishing. The car itself is nice, leather interior and a smooth ride with a decent sound system and obvious luxury, and stealing it off a (presumed) lawyer makes it all that much more better, but it could be any car, illegal or not, and the feeling could still be there. It doesn't seem like December but like summer, not like school but like freedom, not like anything but like everything. Pickles closes his eyes and puts his head against the seat.

"So, uh," Nathan says, two songs later and still barreling down that same street, "what're we gonna do with it?"

"The car?" Pickles asks for needless clarification. He lowers his legs down in front of him and turns towards Nathan, watches his hand move with the wheel, keeping the car steady.

"Yeah." Nathan jerks as the car drifts towards the right and mutters something under his breath. "Jesus, this car is hard to handle.."

Pickles stops and thinks for a moment, weighs options literally in the air with his hands, ponders the meaning of life, sticks a finger to his lips and cups his chin remaking that one pose. Unsurprisingly, he hadn't yet planned that far ahead. He had been halfway under the impression that they'd be arrested before they even closed the doors. "We can't keep it," he says, slowly.

Nathan rolls his eyes, perhaps not the best move to make while in control of a vehicle. As they're going straight and in traffic, he's actually doing a pretty decent job driving, and Pickles doesn't feel unsafe. He feels natural, he thinks, looking at Nathan's hands on the wheel. "I know that," Nathan says. "Sucks though. This is a nice car. Not as nice as an El Camino, but."

"When you don't got a car any car is nice," Pickles says. The song that's emerging on the radio is a good one, and he tries to resists the anticipatory musical euphoria but fails. "I'll let you know about the car situation after this song, alright?" Nathan nods. His nodding transforms into bobbing his head to the music, and then Pickles starts to thrash again, for it's a thrashing sort of day. .

Toki and Murderface come to mind and Pickles spends only seconds on them. Toki would never go for this-not yet, anyway-and Murderface would bitch the whole time. They wouldn't understand. Not like Nathan; not even like Pickles himself. In this car, which feels like his entire planet floating through an unnavigable solar system, Pickles has found contentment. He doesn't want to leave it, the car or the moment, but he knows that he must, and that is where he finds the solution to their conundrum. He emerges from his haze and over the last screeching guitar riff, Pickles announces, "We're gonna crash it."

"Where?" Nathan asks without skipping a beat. Pickles turns the radio off so that the ending stages of his plan can come fully to light.

"Off and in somewhere, like a cliff or something," Pickles says. "And we'll jump out, of course." He cracks his knuckles. His leg has begun bouncing, energy returned, the quantum building up again.

"Okay," Nathan says, completely unfazed. Pickles knows it's a reckless idea, if not outright dangerous, but so was punching out a car window. He has faith and trust in Nathan's ignorance-he wouldn't necessarily call it stupidity-and willingness to go along with what he says. "I know a place," Nathan continues, and he takes a left turn, sudden and sharp.

_A place _turns out to be a small bridge over a waterway nestled between two deserted pieces of land. Pickles recognizes it because it's where they go to get drunk and high sometime with the other guys, since nobody ever comes out there, the _for sale _signs on the surrounding acres having been there for as long as Pickles can remember, and the bridge is old, rusting and due for renewal. It's the wasteland eating at the city, a symbol of the remnants of hasty urban planning. They haven't been there in a while, and to top off the cosmic luck they've had all day, the bridge is now closed to the public. They take no mind of that as Nathan drives through the warning signs and shouts, "Ready? On three!"

On one, Pickles hollers again,throwing his arms into the air.

On two, they both open their doors.

On three, they jump.

Pickles hits the ground on his soldier and it hurts like a bitch. He rolls a few times but is otherwise unaffected, bringing himself to a sitting position near the other side of the bridge. He watches as the car sinks into the water and wonders how deep it is, if they'll get caught, if he'll get arrested, if he _cares_. He's shaken from his thoughts as Nathan pulls him up with a hand and takes off running-Pickles didn't see Nathan land or anything, but he guesses he's alright if he's fleeing the scene-away.

"You okay?" Nathan shouts the _you_, used to the loudness, but says the _okay _much more quietly, realizing they're in a quiet community. The outer rings of the city, past suburbia and on the blurred border, have a rural vibe to them. They're twenty feet away from the scene and have slowed to walking and looking normal, heading towards the convenience store in the near distance. Pickles is glad, not having realized how thirsty he is until this moment.

"Yeah," Pickles says. He rubs his shoulder, the right one, which is throbbing dully with pain. "My shoulder hurts, but I don't think it's, like, broken or anything. But there's gonna be a hell of a bruise. You?"

"Brutal," Nathan says, and he smiles the widest he has all day. "I'm fine." Pickles looks at the arm he punched the window in with and sees that it's stopped bleeding, but the rivers of blood have dried a rusty color in ribbons along his arm. He points at it to bring Nathan's attention there. "I'll wash it off in the bathroom," Nathan says, and Pickles guesses he means the one in the convenience store.

Pickles buys a bottle of water and drinks the whole thing in one long gulp as he leans against the wall of the store, waiting for Nathan to emerge from the bathroom. Pickles crumples the bottle with his fist and chucks it the ground, chuckling at how he just committed grand theft auto and then littering, and feels worse about the littering. He checks his phone and subsequently the time-it's been only an hour since he lept into the passenger seat. It feels like so much shorter and so much longer, all at once. He thinks back to the bridge, back to the car sinking to the bottom of that waterway, back to the lawyer sitting in his office assuming that he's going to drive home in that nice car, and wonders if they'll ever get caught. He doesn't allow himself to consider it deeply as he slides his foot over the water bottle and hears the chime of the store door announcing Nathan's arrival-no, he only smiles and says to nobody in particular, "Fuck it."


End file.
